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Adventure Travel

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Adventure Travel » Soft adventure and soft beds

Adventure Travel, April 2006 issue
Adventure Travel » Soft adventure and soft beds
by Wayne Wirtanen (Third of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3) Great white sharks! From the safety of a small “shark watching” boat, our small group of mildly adventuresome travelers was watching a group of “young and reckless” travelers on a nearby “shark diving” excursion boat in Walker Bay, South Africa, southeast of ...

Adventure Travel » The most luxurious train in the world

Adventure Travel, February 2006 issue
Adventure Travel » The most luxurious train in the world
by Wayne Wirtanen (Second of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3) The luxury train Of the world’s few “luxury trains,” two are in South Africa and they follow similar itineraries. The Blue Train promises the pleasures of a modern 5-star hotel. In contrast, Rovos Rail claims to run the “most luxurious train in ...

Adventure Travel » Luxury adventure travel in South Africa

Adventure Travel, January 2006 issue
Adventure Travel » Luxury adventure travel in South Africa
by Wayne Wirtanen (First of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3) South African game reserves Everything you ever wanted to know about South African game reserves but didn’t know what to ask! Imagine that your very large, fenced-in backyard had wild animals in it. You could keep track of the animals, and you could ...

Adventure Travel » Morocco: distinctive architecture & distinctive people

Adventure Travel, November 2005 issue
(Part 3 of 3 on Morocco) Kasbahs “Come wiz me to zee casbah,” Charles Boyer supposedly said to Hedy Lamarr in the movie “Algiers.” This legendary romantic line never was used in that classic 1938 film, but the myth lives on. What is a casbah, anyway? A casbah (kasbah) is a walled, fortified residential/commercial center, originally an extended-family ...

Adventure Travel » Distinctive cities and the Sahara

Adventure Travel, October 2005 issue
(Part 2 of 3 on Morocco) Casablanca The arrival/departure city for international flights to Morocco, Casablanca is a bustling major city with a population estimated at anywhere from three to eight million. Like all large Moroccan cities, Casablanca has an Old Town — a walled, self-contained marketplace and residential center (or medina) in the middle of the modern ...

Adventure Travel » Morocco — Africa’s California?

Adventure Travel, September 2005 issue
by Wayne Wirtanen (First of three parts) Partway through my visit to Morocco in September ’04, I realized that there were similarities there to what one might find on a trip in California. A quick look at a map showed that Morocco is roughly the same size as California, it has a long, west-facing ocean shoreline and, like ...

Adventure Travel » Bolivia, land of contrasts and mysteries

Adventure Travel, July 2005 issue
(Second of two parts) La Paz La Paz is best remembered for great, inexpensive hotels, shopping bargains and streets of witch doctors. I found the most colorful and largest variety of shopping at the “witches’ market” (Mercado de Hechiceria), across from San Francisco Church (Iglesia de San Francisco) in central La Paz. Vendors there were helpful ...

Adventure Travel » Bolivia, land of contrasts and mysteries

Adventure Travel, June 2005 issue
by Wayne Wirtanen (Part one of two) Bolivia is a land of former fantastic riches and present poverty. A major part of the country is steaming Amazon lowlands. Most tourism is to the nearly 3-mile-high Altiplano, with the highest capital in the world, La Paz, and the highest airport in the world. On an 8-day trip in ...

Adventure Travel » Exploring and reliving ancient Israel

Adventure Travel, May 2005 issue
(Second of two parts) Reliving a day in the life of ancient Israelis Many cities around the world have touristy “old towns.” They usually have costumed “players” demonstrating traditional crafts and acting out the details of daily life from a previous era. The ones that I have visited in the U.S. attempt to recreate time capsules from ...

Adventure Travel » Exploring and reliving ancient Israel

Adventure Travel, April 2005 issue
Adventure Travel for the Mildly Adventuresome is written by Wayne Wirtanen (First of two parts) In February ’04 I spent 10 days in Israel, and five things made unexpected impressions on me. • First, I spent a couple of days each in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem completely on my own, visiting historical sites and marketplaces without seeing any ...